


Pirate By Any Other Name

by WishUponADragon



Series: To Create Is To Submit To The Mortifying Ordeal Of Being Known [3]
Category: Dappervolk (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Shippy if you Squint, canon worldhopper amnesia, minor worldbuilding about how the pets work, post festival (wras route)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26908660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishUponADragon/pseuds/WishUponADragon
Summary: Alaire's runaway magic has accidentally created an animal out of what was supposed to be a gift. This would be less of a problem if it didn't take after the giver of said gift quite so much.
Series: To Create Is To Submit To The Mortifying Ordeal Of Being Known [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975978
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Pirate By Any Other Name

The stupid rainbow eel was  _ smiling _ . It knew exactly what it was doing. Alaire was helpless to watch it swim in lazy circles around her borrowed room in Clione’s house, sparkly jewelry dangling from its mouth.

“Vaer, you’re just like him.” She should have known better than to actually wear the ring, but she’d thought she’d been getting better. More in control. The eel’s apparently permanent smirk seemed to mock this naivety. 

If it just responded to the name she called it like the other animations did, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But she knew enough by now to understand that what she said mattered far less than what she thought, and when she’d laid eyes on the creature the name that had popped into her head was not June as she’d told Clione, but Jumanji. 

She didn’t remember her old life, her old world, but on some instinctual level she recognized the name, and knew for certain she wanted nothing to do with it. Jumanji, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with her without it. 

“Rose by any other name still has its thorns, huh?” Alaire scowled at it. “Are you really sure I can’t call you Rose? It’s so much nicer, I promise.” 

The eel couldn’t speak of course, but the flash in its eyes spoke to an emphatic no. 

She sighed. “I don’t know what I expected.” She held out a hand. “Jumanji, drop the stuff.”

The eel obliged, though it didn’t find it necessary to bring the things to her before dropping them. She stood up and checked the pressure on her breathing apparatus. Her other animations would be fine by themselves for a bit, surely long enough for her to visit the man who’d given her the ring. 

“Come on, Jumanji.” It obeyed, swimming slowly so as to just keep pace with her. At least it was polite about her not being an underwater native. 

It was probably silly to think Wras would know what to do about it, it probably wasn’t even his ring.  _ Definitely _ wasn’t. Still, he’d given it to her, and an idea of why he’d done so might help her understand the newborn better, and why it tugged so hard on what must have been a horrible memory. Where had she gotten that name from? 

Maybe Wras would be able to pull on it hard enough to dislodge the full story behind it.

The pirates probably could have picked a less ostentatious spot for their hideout than the sunken ship, but she supposed their captain wouldn’t have been able to settle for anything less dramatic. She found him amongst a large group pouring over a diagram of some kind. Someone nudged him when she entered the room, Jumanji circling lazily above her head. 

When he noticed her he practically jumped over the table, which she had to remind herself was easier underwater, as one of the crew swept the kelp leaves into a cabinet. “Hey, worldhopper. What are you doing around here?”

She leaned against the doorframe she’d just swum through. “Wanted to talk to you. Got a minute?”

He nodded to a closed door behind him, one of the only ones still on its hinges in the whole ship. “For you, darling? I got all day.”

Alaire followed after him, fighting down the rising heat in her cheeks. He was only being nice because of what happened at the festival, of course. Still. His smirk was a perfect match for Jumanji’s, and she couldn’t quite get the way he’d said ‘darling’ out of her head.

With at least some semblance of privacy provided by what must have been the captain’s quarters, she took a moment to really compare them. Jumanji’s scales reflected light in a broad multi colored array in much the same way Wras’s fins did. The resemblance was a bit uncanny, and undoubtedly Wras had noticed it too. She stayed quiet and waited to see if he’d guess.

She wasn’t disappointed. Wras made no move to reach out to the eel, but he studied it appraisingly before turning his attention back to her. “Been thinking of me lately?” His voice was light and teasing, but she was paying enough attention to catch the undercurrent of genuine curiosity. 

He’d been around enough worldhoppers to get a sense for how the animation magic functioned of course, a few of them having joined his crew. The animator’s mental state and current environment were as important as the object’s significance and history in influencing the resulting creature. Anything hatched in the reef would be an aquatic being of some kind, but its details and form varied. 

The truth was most likely to get her answers of her own. “The ring you gave me, at the festival.” She paused, taking a moment to gauge his reaction. He was more serious than she’d seen him look before, even when planning and committing crimes he always had an air of playfulness about him, but it was gone now. He didn’t seem at all surprised, either. There was a lot she hoped to find out, but only one thing that really mattered right now, and her suspicions were already half confirmed. “Did you- was it on purpose?”

He looked away, suddenly focused on Jumanji’s looping figure eight path around and between them. Finally he shrugged, fins twitching up and down in what she’d gathered was nervousness. “I wanted to know.” And as if a switch had been flipped, he was the cocky and self assured pirate she’d first been introduced to. “Guess I was right, you do like me, huh?”

Alaire felt a smile tug the corners of her lips upwards. “Wras. That wasn’t ever in question.”

The facade slipped again, though only one fin twitched in this stunned silence. “Oh. Uh, right. Of course not.” And there was that smile again, the one that showed off those rows of needle teeth he was famous for. No wonder Jumanji had it.

She tilted her head to the side. “The ring? Where’d you get it?” 

He waved around them. “Was one of the things left in here when I found the place. Had it forever.” He tilted his head to match her. “What’s its name?”

“June,” she answered, without really thinking. The eel hissed its displeasure and kept its loops to Wras’s side of the room. She sighed. “Jumanji.” The eel resumed its previous lazy pattern, flitting its sharp tail a bit too close to her face. 

“Jumanji, huh.” He drew the word out, clearly unfamiliar with it. Well, that was one theory shot, the name hadn’t come from Wras. “You don’t like it?”

She drummed her fingers against her cheek and scowled. “It’s... I don’t know, I think it’s from a memory of home. A bad one? And it feels like it picked it, like it’s enjoying that I have to call it something that makes me feel afraid.” 

He hummed. “Maybe it wants to help you remember.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s just being a little shit.”

“Maybe.” He huffed a small laugh and considered her carefully. “Do you want me to keep it for you?”

That... was not an offer she’d expected. “Do you want it?”

He held a hand out, palm down, and the eel snaked below it, allowing itself to be petted. “I don’t want you to keep it if it scares you.” 

They really looked like they belonged together, like they were just reflections of each other. Alaire didn’t want to push them away. “I’m not afraid of Jumanji, more like...” She rolled her hands in a tight circle in front of her,  _ a loading symbol _ , her mind supplied, whatever that meant. “I just wish I could remember why the name’s important.”

He nodded slowly. “You’ve remembered stuff before, right?”

“Bits and pieces. Just enough to know my world was really different from here.”

“Right. Well, what triggered those?” He’d definitely had an idea of some sort, but was waiting to see if she’d pick up on it too.

She thought about it. Talking to her friends about their lives had made her remember a few parallels to her own. Her pets sometimes looked achingly familiar, but she didn’t always know why. It usually felt like the memories she was barred from were nice, though. 

“Sometimes when I talk to people, it feels like I’m having a conversation I’ve already had? The things around the first conversation can just sort of, shake out, I guess?”

Wras flashed her that grin again. “Okay. So talk to me. Tell me about Jumanji.”

She stood up straighter, unconsciously counting on her fingers. “Teeth, water, kind of small, that’s like one ‘thing,’ and then the first part of the name is another, it's the, clue, I guess. It’s why I tried June, even though that didn’t stick.” 

Wras stayed quiet, listening with the same attention he’d given her earlier, waiting for her to suggest how to get at the memory. Her eyes drifted back to Jumanji, still making the steady, almost mechanical loops between them.

“It’s a game,” she realized with a start. “A board game.. about the jungle! No, in the jungle? With lots of dangerous things. And people played it thinking it was a normal game and got hurt.” She trailed off, the memory fading as quickly as it had sprung to mind. “I should have been afraid though, because it wasn’t real, it was...” she scrunched her nose up in concentration. “A legend? I really liked the story, even though it scared me.”

Wras had gotten closer to her while she wasn’t paying attention. He brushed a bit of hair behind her shoulder. “So, you think I’m like a legend, then?” 

She should probably have learned to watch her mouth around him. “A scary and dangerous legend, that I like? Yeah, that fits you pretty well.” She snorted a soft laugh. “Looks like you were right, then, Jumanji was trying to help me remember.”

The eel in question swam past them, a bunch of sparkling gold now hanging out of its jaw. Wras sighed. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a little shit.” 


End file.
